Discussing "Shall Not Be Infringed" viewpoint on WA Initiative 591

http://sos.wa.gov/_assets/elections/initiatives/FinalText_471.pdf

Secretary of State website, "Initiatives to the Legislature", under Elections.

If you can exhibit restraint and refrain from inquiring if their family tree has but a single branch, any arguments you make will likely make more of an impression. I've run into this line of pseudo-argument before (aka the No True Scotsman or Purity fallacy) and the most fundamental flaw, IMHO, is that it fails to recognize the basic principal that the perfect is the enemy of the good.

Ideally, about 15 minutes from now Obama & Co would be struck with the sense God gave a slightly demented duck (unlikely) and suddenly realize that the entire Bill of Rights (including the 2nd Amendment) protect near-absolute rights and about half an hour in we'd see the ATF turn into a civil rights agency, the DOJ struggling to promote repeal of Federal and local anti-gun laws, and apologies published in every newspaper as a result of this magical epiphany.

I suspect even the dullest among us can figure out that the above is a deeply unlikely set of events. There is a slightly better chance that Olympia will be pummeled to the ground by a regiment of Anastasia's Imperial Flying War Elephants (complete with brass howdahs).

"Shall not be infringed" is a lovely goal. We can all gather to celebrate with tea and cake when it is finally achieved. But if we choose to dwell in reality (as opposed to a state imposed by chemical imbalance, natural or otherwise), we are actually faced with a trail of ten thousand steps to get anywhere close to there. While we've gotten a long way down the road in the right direction and a few dozen steps are great - we've got thousands of steps to go.

We have a crisis in leadership in our community as we discover that our leaders - actually age and suffer from the dread disease of being human. We currently enjoy an administration at the state and federal level that is fundamentally hostile to gun ownership (and any individual rights that do not provide them or their agenda immediate political benefit). The nation is cursed with a resurgence (we can only hope it is the dying throes of a philosophically bankrupt anti-2A group) in anti-gun laws and politicking by collectivist loons.

I-591 is a step along the path to get to the ultimate goal of Constitutional Carry. Sign it, vote for it, and get ready for the next fight. We live in interesting times, and with the opponents we have any time we're not trying to actively advance the cause we need to be nailing down our successes so we can lay our next layer of triumphs as a community upon them.

Hope that helps -

GayCynic
Seattle, WA

On 7/19/2013 6:24 AM, A Sensible Gun Person wrote:
>
>
> Can someone point me to this? The following was just posted to a local
> patriot Facebook page and I'd like to refute it, but preferably with the
> text in front of me.
>
> "Please DO NOT sign ANY gun petitions...both are bad. The language of I-591
> "...unless a uniform national standard is required."...means that if the
> federal government passes a 'uniform national standard', i.e. registry, you
> have already given away your 10th Amendment rights to oppose any federal
> laws. The 'uniform national standard' has not been written yet...no one
> knows what it will look like. Besides, we already have a 'uniform national
> standard'....it is called the 2nd amendment. How can you improve on
> "...shall not be infringed."?"
>
> A Sensible Gun Person
> Brinnon